Customs – Ninja Force Zartan

As with the rest of the Ninja Force customs I had planned, I put together the parts for this one two years ago and have only just reinvigorated myself with my customs.

Sure, a bit ambitious to take on the project of the entire crappyass, dayglo 90’s G.I. Joe Ninja Force all at once. I see that now. But them limits, they is there to be pushed.

I knew that I would put off Zartan and his zany colours and wacky mohawk though, because I was anxious about trying to sculpt that damn mohawk! I looked around for custom cast heads too, but I don’t remember finding anything that would work. I even bought some proper Green Stuff (shit is spendy!) for sculpting, but Chief Craft Supervisor Wife got ahold of it and I haven’t seen it since.

Then one day I was looking at the Banzai that I did (will link later) and I remembered that his hair was originally off of one of the ROC ladies that I have heaps of.

Sure enough, I got to looking at ROC Baroness’s hair, particularly along the bottom, and I had an idea. I cut off the bottom section of her hair, sculpted and curved it and heatgunned it and sho’ nuff, it was an awesome-looking mohawk.

Because really, go big or go home. If I’m making crazy biker ninja assassin in flouros and leather, what’s the point of a nice, conservative mohawk?

Kwapang! Gotcha squirrel!

It was Head Art Executive Wife’s suggestion to bag the green pants and do orange and green stripes down some “snazzy” pants. The orange and green are strips of electrical tape and the pants are just black with a silver wash. Thanks Wifeage!

Knifey Spooney mate… um, no.

I originally had those funky Retaliation Storm Shadow lower legs on him too, but there was something about them that didn’t work and I ended up with ROC Nitro Viper’s boots instead.

And while I understand the irony in pointing out something subtle, because it’s too subtle, the boots are black with a purple wash. Because you can’t go wrong when tying together flouro orange, green and purple. Wait, what?

Dude, you’ll never get the ladies with those pants…

Old school! Shit, just noticed I’m missing heaps of stuff for that O-ring.

Well, I stayed simple on accessories deliberately because I felt that the NF stuff came with too much and I like the idea of Zarty carrying his bow and little else.

In case the mohawk didn’t get my point across, I cut the sleeves off my leather jacket too.

I also noticed that the O-ring version has the armguard on the wrong arm, so I fixed that.

Jacket – Mutt Williams (Indiana Jones). I think this is the first time I’ve used something from a toyline that’s not G.I.Joe! The chain is from one of my daughters’ broken necklaces that swished around the bottom of their jewellery box so long that I dug it out and threw it in my customs fodder.

Biggest Fail: The seams of the pants are very obvious because of how the wash laid down on it. If I could do it over, I’d find a better way to get that wash on so that the paint doesn’t gather like that. Also, the sheathe for the knives is too tight and one of the knives already has some paint stripping off.

Biggest Nail: While I love his head and I’m pretty proud of it, I LOVE that bow. Gives me happy vibes every time.